


Like a bird in flight

by blodeuweddbach



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mythology, Arranged Marriage, Attempted Seduction, Bets & Wagers, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Contrived? I prefer happily coincidental, F/M, I'm Sorry, Love Stories, Mabinogion, Magic, Mildly Dubious Consent, Sansa be scheming, Sansa is bad at making plans, Slow Burn, but in a nice way?, but not really, guess who's coming to dinner, sandor isn't complaining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-26 21:31:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17753840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blodeuweddbach/pseuds/blodeuweddbach
Summary: Sandor Clegane finds a beautiful stranger on his land, and finds himself inexplicably drawn to her. She makes him an offer he can't refuse- her hand in marriage, provided he render her a service.That service: defeat her fiancee in a duel.Her fiancee: the King of the Otherworld.What could possibly go wrong?





	1. wouldn't you love to love her

Pa le mae sain dy eiriau melys,

Fu’n denu’n nghalon ar dy ôl?

_Where is the sound of your sweet words,_

_That drew my heart to follow you?_

**(‘Myfanwy’, Traditional)**

* * *

In the dappled sunlight falling through the trees, Sansa Stark felt at peace for the first time in centuries.

The woods had long been her favourite place to wander. Her father had often taken Sansa and her siblings through those same woods on their journeys to the human realm. The veil between worlds was particularly thin among the oaks and hollies. If she listened carefully enough, she could hear the soft hum of magic seeping through from the Otherworld. 

It had been a long time since she had ventured there, but the woods seemed much the same as on her last visit. That had been with Arya, she recalled. The two of them had been in great trouble for leaving the Otherworld unaccompanied, and Septa Mordane had scolded Sansa so fiercely that she had cried all night. Now, she decided she would gladly trade such a punishment for a few hours of blissful solitude. 

Among the Otherworldly court, she was a future queen. Newly engaged women, and women engaged to nobility most of all, were subject to intense scrutiny and gossip. Under the watchful gaze of the trees, however, Sansa might have been a child again. If she closed her eyes, she might have been back with her father, listening to his lessons on the mortal world. 

Ignoring the tears stinging the back of her eyes, Sansa let herself enjoy the thought. Perhaps Ned was only waiting behind one of these gnarled oaks for her to find him. It was better than to accept the alternative, as much as she had come to realise the truth of it in the last year since her father had been gone. 

Joffrey had no patience for such reveries. Joffrey had no patience for her at all, really. It was one of the reasons she had sought out the solitude of these woods. Here she could escape both his company and the crushing realisation that she would be stuck in a loveless marriage to a cruel man, if only for a few hours. 

Her father had always promised her someone strong and gentle and true. Joffrey Baratheon was none of those things; Ned Stark had died before he could learn as much, and the Starks, ever wary of honour, were bound to the promises he had made in life. _Being honourable is easy,_ Sansa thought bitterly, passing under a curved bough that made an arch across the path, _when it’s not you who will be made miserable._ Swallowing against the lump in her throat, she was suddenly struck with an unusual streak of hot anger. It burned through her veins like fire, and it was all she could do not to shout her frustrations to the empty blue sky. 

Instead, she aimed a vicious (and unladylike, though she spared it little thought) kick at a log beside the path. Taking a deep, shaking breath, Sansa squinted up at the sunlight falling through the canopy, trying to calm herself again. 

_You can’t return home in this state,_ she reminded herself forcefully. _Mother does not need your disobedience on top of everything else._ Family, duty, honour; the words were her lifeblood, had been the only thing to keep her moving in the wake of her father’s death. She could not betray them now, not when everyone had such expectations of her. 

Her thoughts were cut short by a strange noise somewhere close behind her. Barely suppressing a scream, more by shock than courage, Sansa wheeled around, eyes searching the shadows around her. They fell on the log she had kicked at earlier. On closer inspection, it was not a log at all, but a leg. Following along its length with her gaze, Sansa nearly screamed again to find that said leg belonged to a figure sitting slumped against a tree. 

Clad in dun and olive green, she had not even noticed the man initially. Such a realisation seemed unbelievable to Sansa, given the stranger’s obvious bulk. Even seated, she could tell he was enormous, a hulking shadow on the forest floor. She stared wide-eyed at the man, waiting for him to strike- surely he must, for she had kicked him! After a few heartbeats of silence, however, he made no move. 

Peering closer through the gloom, Sansa noted that the man’s eyes were closed, his breathing heavy and even. _He is asleep._ It was a relieving thought, if slightly confusing. The ground was hardly a comfortable place to rest. Taking advantage of the man’s compromised consciousness, she inched a little closer toward him. She could smell the unmistakable smell of wine, though it was sharp and unpleasant. _Human-made wine._ Wrinkling her nose, Sansa examined the man’s face, and nearly stepped back in shock. 

One half of the man’s face was covered in scars. In the dappled light, she had not noticed them at first. On closer inspection, however, they were red and angry-looking, even weeping in a few places. A glimpse of white jaw-bone made her stomach twist. 

It was the first time Sansa had ever seen another person in the woods. They had been uninhabited by mortals as far as she could remember. There was a keep nearby, she recalled, but it had lain empty for many human years. Glancing down at the scarred giant at her feet, she wondered if that was where he had come from. 

Suddenly, so suddenly she actually _did_ scream, one of the man’s huge hands shot out and closed around her wrist, pulling her forward. Twisting in his grip, Sansa’s heart thudded against her ribcage in panic. She had heard stories of what cruelties men were capable of. Pulling against his vice-like grasp, her mind raced to think of a spell that might aid her escape. 

“Stop,” the man rasped at her. His voice was gravelly and low. She saw that his eyes were open now. In the half-light, they were black as sloes. Wary of the anger she could see in them, Sansa found herself obeying, falling still in his grip. The man lumbered to his feet, still not releasing her. He was as tall as she had predicted; the top of her head barely reached the middle of his chest. 

“Who are you?” The man demanded. His breath washed hot and wine-heavy over her face. Sansa could barely think, panic overriding any response that tried to fight its way out of her mouth. She had always been warned not to leave the Otherworld alone. Now she knew why. 

She had been silent for too long. The enormous man shook her slightly, eyes narrowed. In the shadows cast by the tree above them, he looked truly monstrous. 

“Who are you girl?” He repeated, voice like steel on stone. “Why are you trespassing on my lands?” 

_His lands?_ Sansa couldn’t help the sudden flame of possessiveness that washed over her at those words. _I have been walking these paths since before your grandfather was born,_ she felt like shouting at him. Instead, she merely squeaked in fright as his eyes travelled down her form. They moved slowly, almost thoughtfully. Sansa watched wide-eyed as his expression softened a little. She couldn’t feel relieved, however- the blazing anger was merely replaced with an undisguised hunger as he looked over her. 

“You’re dressed like a lady,” he told her, his free hand closing around her upper arm. It was not ungentle, but it made panic rise in her throat all the same. She had never been strong; there was no way she could fight him off, not without using magic. _It is forbidden,_ she reminded herself, though that was beginning to matter less and less the longer she stood in the terrifying man’s grasp, _we cannot use our arts on a mortal._ “Only girls round here are the daughters of peasant farmers. So I’ll ask you once again, girl, and don’t lie to me-“ his face was closer now, somehow, his hooked nose mere inches from her own, “who are you and what are you doing here?” 

“You wouldn’t believe me,” Sansa replied. Her voice sounded weak and small, barely a whisper in the stillness. The man gave an ugly snort. 

“Try me.” 

She swallowed. Her options in that moment were few; attempt to escape with her magic, and risk placing herself in serious trouble with the Otherworldly court, or try to talk her way out of her predicament. Something in the way the man was holding her, tightly but as though she were something easily broken, made her suddenly sure that he would not harm her. She chose the latter plan.

“My name is Sansa,” she told him, after a few heartbeats of silence. “I… am not from around here.” 

“Clearly,” the man rasped, “else I’d have remembered you.” 

Not wanting to ponder on that comment, Sansa pressed on. He had told her not to lie, and he seemed less drunk than she had initially believed. She doubted he would take kindly to any deviations from the truth, but would he actually accept the truth itself? Mortals were notoriously oblivious to anything outside of their own realm. This man was likely no exception. 

Watching her struggle, the man gave a huff of frustration. “You can answer my questions here and now, or I can take you back to the keep and ask you in a holding cell like a common thief.” 

Sansa’s stomach swooped at that. “No!” She said, pulling fruitlessly away from him. “Please! I was merely taking a walk through these woods. I didn’t know it was your land, ser.” 

“I’m no ser,” the man told her sharply. “And you’re no thief, I know. What would bring you to a place such as this, and in clothes such as _those_ ,” he nodded down at her dress, a fine gown of gold brocade that she had donned to please Joffrey that morning, “is less certain.” 

His stare was so intense that Sansa couldn’t meet it. Her gaze hovered at the top of his jerkin, where she could see the edge of coarse hair peeking out against the ties. He was not dressed like a man who owned lands, but then mortals never seemed to dress as finely as their counterparts in the Otherworld. She supposed it had something to do with their fragile lifespans; it seemed they cared less for such frivolous things as fashions. 

When she made no attempt to answer him, the man heaved a sigh. 

“To let you go would be to set a precedent that anyone is welcome to trespass through these woods,” he rasped at her. His words made her feel cold with fear. “So you had best come with me, little bird.” 

_Little bird._ He said it mockingly, but it struck Sansa as strange that he would not use her name when she had given it to him. 

“Please,” she told him, “people will be wondering where I am-“

“Since you won’t tell me where you’re from, I think we’re past that concern, wouldn’t you say?” The man gave her a mirthless grin that set a muscle in the corner of his mouth to twitching. “Come along. I’m not done with you.” 

She could flee, Sansa knew. She could knock him to the ground with a single spell and fly back to the Otherworld before he knew what had occurred. There would be punishment for it; she would have to explain to everyone, to Mother, to Jon, but if she explained it was in her own defence perhaps they would be lenient. It was Joffrey’s reaction she dreaded; he would likely mock her for being so foolish as to be caught by a mere mortal. 

The thought of her golden-haired, worm-lipped fiancée made an idea flash through Sansa’s mind like lightning. She glanced up at the burned man, taking in his hulking form, the cruel twist of his mouth. His eyes were a silvery grey, she realised, rather than black; the hunger was still in them, beneath the suspicion and anger. That hunger frightened her, but struck her with sudden inspiration all the same.

“Very well,” she heard herself say. Her voice trembled like a leaf in the wind. The man lifted one good eyebrow, apparently not expecting such an easy surrender. Then he turned, pulling her onto the path and toward the keep. 

Sansa watched his enormous back as they walked, her mind racing with the plan that had begun to grow within it. Despite her fear, and the quiver in her hands, she felt more sure of herself than she had in some time. 

Perhaps all was not lost. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've peppered this thing with references to the First Branch of the Mabinogion so definitely give it a look if you enjoy mythology. Work and chapter titles are, of course, from 'Rhiannon; by Fleetwood Mac. Sansa's character here is loosely based on Rhiannon herself, minus the whole 'you ate your baby!' thing (srsly look it up). 
> 
> Also the traditional song mentioned at the beginning is rumoured to be about a poet's love for the lady of Dinas Bran castle, Llangollen, in the 14th century. How romantic! I'm sure we can all think of a girl who'd love a song like that...
> 
> More to come, so if you enjoyed this little snippet, please leave a comment! It makes my day.


	2. like a bell through the night

Of all the things Sandor had expected to find while drunk in the woods, a beautiful young redhead was not one of them. 

He had dozed off under a tree- because gods be damned if he was going to go back to his ruin of a keep before he absolutely needed to- when he had felt something kick his leg. Or, more precisely, _someone_. He had just about been ready to lob the bastard’s head off his shoulders for waking him, when he’d noticed that they were in fact a girl. _A girl in gold brocade, no less._

She must be rich, he surmised, watching her from across the table where they now sat in the lord’s hall. It was small as halls went, befitting of a minor lord, but it had never failed to impress the tenant farmers who dared to cross the threshold. With Sansa, if that was her true name, sitting within it, Sandor felt strangely embarrassed by the humble surroundings. A draft was howling through the room from somewhere in the roof. He made a mental note to get it fixed, folding his arms and leaning back in his chair as he looked at his prisoner. 

He’d never caught a trespasser so docile before, nor one so pretty. She sat very demurely in her chair, pale little hands folded in her lap, eyes trained on the top of the rickety table. He was used to dealing with poachers and thieves; Sansa was neither, and he had no idea what to do with her now that he had her in his home. 

Well, that was only half true. He knew what he _wanted_ to do with her, but had better sense and control than to do any of that. The halls of Clegane Keep had seen enough of women’s misery, and he didn’t wish to add to that any time soon. 

“Where do you live, Sansa?” 

He’d already asked her this question several times. Her answers had been vague; his building anger, however, seemed to be cowing her. She glanced up, eyes hovering over his scars, before falling to the table again. 

“I live in a place called Winterfell,” she told him, in her lovely voice. Sandor watched her for a long moment, waiting for some sign that it was a lie. When he found none, he leaned forward in his chair in what he hoped was menacing, but might as well have been leering. Her hair was glowing coppery in the firelight, turning her skin to cream. _And I’d eat her up,_ he thought wildly, watching as she shifted uncomfortably under the weight of his gaze. 

“Never heard of it.” There was nowhere in Dyfed with that name, and he had travelled over the entire westerlands. He wondered if she had come from the Marcher lordships to the east, but it seemed unlikely. In fact, she had a different quality altogether, unlike any woman he had ever met. It bemused him, and intrigued him. Most of all it made him angry. _She will give me no straight answers, it seems._ “Is it to the east of here? Or north, perhaps?” 

The girl shook her head, almost forlornly. “I told you, it’s far from here. You wouldn’t believe me.” 

_This nonsense again._ Leaning back in his chair, Sandor took a sip from the goblet beside him on the table. It was filled with a rich red, and served to keep him slightly sane as he tried to get an ounce of sense from the little bird opposite. 

“We’re going round in circles, _Sansa_ ,” he rasped, drawing out her name like an insult. “I’ve half a mind to throw you in the dungeons with the poachers. Wonder how they’d like that; a pretty little thing like you at their mercy.” 

She looked him in the face at that, outrage written across her features. “You wouldn’t!” 

“No, I wouldn’t,” he acquiesced. He gestured to the plate in front of her, laden with slowly cooling food. She paid it no mind, blue eyes narrowing at him instead. _At least she’s looking at me now._ Picking a morsel of chicken from his plate, he threw it toward the hearth. A hound snapped it up from where he sat languidly beside the fire, tail thumping against the flagstones. Then he turned back to the little bird, returning her glare. “Plenty worse men than me in the world, girl, so you’d better stop looking at me as though I’ve mortally wounded you.” 

Cowed by those words, she looked down into her lap again. “I suppose you think I’m being difficult,” she said. It was more to herself than him. “For not telling you where I’m from.” 

“That’s exactly what I think,” he agreed, taking another sip of wine. 

“And yet you don’t throw me in the dungeons with the rest of the trespassers, despite my reluctance.” 

Sandor narrowed his eyes at her. “Do you _want_ me to?” 

The girl shook her head. “No, ser.” 

“I’m no bloody ser,” he growled, “so you can stop that chirping. You know what I want to hear- the truth.” 

She made no answer. The seconds began to stretch into minutes as he stared at her, so murderously grown men might have pissed themselves. The girl merely waited, staring at her folded hands like a mute. Finally, Sandor found his voice amid his frustrations. 

“Until you feel the need to tell me who exactly you are,” he rasped at her, “or where you’re from, you will remain in this keep.” 

He saw her take a deep breath. “I will be missed, se- my lord.” 

“Not a lord, either,” he told her. _That_ was a lie, of sorts. He was a lord now, only by virtue of his brother’s death. The girl didn’t need to know that however. “And I couldn’t give two shits if someone is missing you. You won’t tell me who they are, and it’s no hair off my arse. So I’ll keep you here until you learn some honesty.” 

There was something extremely satisfying, in the darker part of his brain that he didn’t wish to ponder in that moment, to see the colour drain from the girl’s pretty cheeks. For half a moment, he thought she would protest. 

He was wrong, however. 

“As you wish, my lord,” was Sansa’s soft reply. There was no emotion in it, none at all. It irked him more than an insult screamed in his face. 

It was needless, he decided, rising to his feet so abruptly that the chair legs screeched in protest. The dog by the hearth gave a low whine. Sandor ignored it, attention fixed on the woman across from him. He hated liars, and in his good opinion, those who withheld the truth were one in the same. 

“Aeron!” He shouted, so suddenly that the girl jumped in her seat. A scuffling of feet against the flagstones behind him told Sandor the steward had answered his summons. 

“My lord?” 

Sandor resisted showing his annoyance at the title. His anger was otherwise occupied, anyway. Sansa glanced up at him- only for a moment, the tiniest glimmer of blue- but it was he who turned away from it. 

“Show this girl to one of the guest rooms,” he ordered, fighting to keep his voice level. When the man opened his mouth to protest, Sandor cut him off sharply. “ _Whichever_ room is in the best state of repair. She is not to leave until I say she can. I want a guard placed in front of her door, do you understand me?” 

The guards of Clegane Keep were, at best, spotty teenagers from the village, and at worse bent-backed old men who had survived Gregor’s wrath. The girl didn’t need to know that, however. 

“Yes, my lord,” Aeron acquiesced, with a strange bow of the head that looked more like a flinch. _Another who knew Gregor well enough,_ Sandor thought, turning his back to the table. He’d had his fill of Sansa for the evening. No amount of beauty could compensate for such a lack of honesty, and the day’s events were catching up to him. _Not as young as I used to be,_ Sandor mused, stepping toward the fire. He’d always hated that damn hearth. If it were up to him, he’d have it bricked up and forgotten about; but the keep was draughty even in summer. 

Instead, he reached down to pat the head of the old dog. It pushed up into his calloused palm, tail beginning to wag again. Sandor could feel a pair of eyes boring into the back of his head. He ignored it, until he could hear the girl rise from her chair, presumably to follow Aeron to her quarters. 

“Sleep well,” Sandor called to her as she disappeared from the hall. “Whoever you are.” 

* * *

Arya had begun to pace. Up and down in front of the fire in the great hall she walked, turning so abruptly each time that Jon finally looked up from the letter he had been writing to speak. 

“What is it?” 

His sister wheeled to face him, her brow lined in frustration. 

“Sansa hasn’t returned from the capital yet,” she told him, as though it were completely obvious. “It was only to be a day visit, she said.” 

Jon returned his pen to the inkwell, leaning back in his chair with a sigh. “It’s unlike you to care so much about what Sansa does, Arya.” 

Arya’s scowl deepened at that. She had Needle in her hand, he noticed; she swiped absently at the air around her legs with it. _She really is agitated._ It never failed to confound Jon how observant Arya could be, and he got the sudden, horrible feeling that he was missing something. 

“It’s not like her to go against her word, is all,” Arya offered, turning from him to stare into the blazing hearth. “She’s usually so _punctual_.”

Jon couldn’t help but chuckle at that. Arya always managed to make any description of Sansa’s virtues sound exactly like Septa Mordane. 

“She most likely lost track of time and decided to remain in the capital for the evening.” Jon picked up his pen again, returning the nib to the parchment. “She’s not quite as skilled as you in magic, Arya. A sudden transportation like that would be exhausting, so I think she’s being quite sensible in remaining there until the morning.” 

Arya didn’t turn around. She had grown, Jon noticed. It made him feel suddenly older than his years, older than the office of Warden of the North ever could. 

“Mother will ask for her,” his sister said, in a small voice. They both knew that was a lie. The combination of Ned’s death, Robb’s disappearance and Bran’s accident had reduced Catelyn to distraction. She occupied her time between the crypts and her crippled son’s bedside, oblivious to everything else. The only one she seemed to take notice of was Jon. All of the hatred Catelyn had held toward him had boiled over in the wake of her husband’s death. The fact that Jon occupied the position that should, by rights, have belonged to Robb only worsened her fury. 

Jon made no reply for a few long moments, staring at the end of the quill instead. It was an owl feather, he noticed vaguely, spotted along its edges. 

“I will send for her in the morning,” he offered finally, watching as Arya turned to look at him. She’d grown into her features since their father’s death, he noticed somewhat sadly. Jon wondered if she looked more like their Aunt Lyanna now. _I suppose we’ll never know._ “You should get some rest.” 

Arya gave him a withering look, but sheathed Needle back at her side. Jon took that as a surrender, however small. 

“Fine. But if something has happened to her, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” 

Jon smiled to himself as his sister stalked out of the room. She could move so silently when she wished to. She was more a cat than a direwolf. 

As though he had read Jon’s thoughts, Ghost padded through the doorway Arya had just left. Jon watched as he bent into a low stretch, watched the oversized paws flex in the firelight as the wolf took up Arya’s place beside the fire. Unlike Arya, however, Ghost was facing him directly. His eyes seemed darker in the shadows, like long-dried blood. 

“Are you going to lecture me too?” Jon asked him. Ghost, to his credit, made no reply. With another sigh, Jon turned his attention back to his letter. The pen, he realised, had left an ugly splotch of ink on the paper. _You’ll have to begin again,_ Jon told himself angrily, standing from his chair to go and fetch more parchment. 

It was in that moment, just for a heartbeat, that he felt a stab of unease. He recalled Arya’s words, and realised he had spared little thought for his eldest sister. _What if there is something in Arya’s concerns?_ Sansa often made trips to the capital to visit Joffrey; it was unlikely any harm would come to her, or so he hoped. 

Jon’s eyes turned to the patch of ink spreading across the parchment, and hoped it was not an omen. 

* * *

The keep was, at best, barely habitable. Sulking in her room (or, more aptly, her cell; she could hear the guard snoring outside her door), Sansa thought longingly of her warm chambers back in Winterfell and the piles of furs on her bed. 

_Nothing is keeping me here,_ she thought wistfully, staring out of the window into the shadowy smudge of the woods. She was not considered adept at the magical arts, but any Otherworldly lady worth her salt knew a simple levitation spell. It wouldn’t take much to prise the rickety old windowpane open and vanish out into the dark before the man who called himself Sandor Clegane even knew she was gone. 

Doing so, however, would thoroughly ruin her plan. It had seemed an excellent idea when she had first conjured it in her mind; now, though, Sansa had begun to see the cracks in her perfectly-constructed scheme. A huge, Sandor Clegane-shaped crack. 

She had angered him with her reluctance to reveal her true identity, but Sansa had been very aware of the interest still lingering in his grey gaze when he had watched her from the other end of the hall table. Despite the prevailing opinion that she was an empty-headed fool (for Cersei was not as quiet as she thought, well into her cups), Sansa was not entirely ignorant. She knew that the gigantic man in whose house she was currently residing (or, rather, prisoner) thought her beautiful. She’d seen the same look in men’s eyes before. Septa Mordane had warned her about it most forcefully. 

_“They think of one thing, my dear,”_ the woman had told her, _“and it is not gallantry. Lust is a sin we must avoid, and men are no exception to this rule.”_

Sansa both feared and hoped this was true. If the man named Clegane did… _want_ her, the way men wanted women, then it was all the better for her plan. However, it was still somewhat alarming. She was only a young maiden- such attentions from brutes such as Clegane were intimidating to say the least. 

“Be brave, Sansa,” she whispered to herself, pulling the covers of the bed up to her chin as though to protect herself. They were musty, as though no one had slept in them for quite some time. The whole place seemed to be falling in on itself. She could hear the wind whistling through the rafters somewhere above her head, and more than once as the night wore on she could have sworn she heard the scuttling of mice in the corner. 

She could cope with mice, she decided. She could cope with draughty halls, and musty sheets, and the horrible scarred face of horrible Clegane. 

It was all for her father. Sansa had realised, thinking of her fiancee’s cruel laughter and mocking words on her return to the Otherworld, what a true insult to the memory of Ned Stark it would be if she were to wed Joffrey Baratheon. Never mind that Ned had arranged the marriage when he had been alive; she knew, with a certainty that turned her chest heavy has lead, that had her father understood what Joffrey was, he would never have placed his daughter in the position she currently found herself in. 

Her father hadn’t known what had happened to Prince Tommen’s cat, or about the whispers of servants who had sustained horrible injuries while waiting on the King in his chambers. He hadn’t known that Joffrey was most likely a monster. Sansa hadn’t even dared confess such suspicions to her family. To tell them would be to give life to a vague nightmare. 

_But to marry him,_ she knew, fear tightening her throat like a vice, _would be to place myself in the middle of that nightmare._ She would end up like Tommen’s cat, gutted and discarded like a broken toy. Sansa was sure of that much. It terrified her more than anything. 

She needed a way out. An escape from this terrible duty, without placing her family’s honour in disgrace. The Starks could not, in all good conscience, break the promise their father had made the former King before their subsequent deaths without dire consequence. As far as the Otherworld were concerned, Sansa Stark was as good as Queen. Unless, of course, someone were foolish enough to challenge Joffrey for her hand. 

Sansa couldn’t recall the first time she had heard the story, but it was one that had played in her mind since her childhood. A woman from the Otherworld had fallen in love with a mortal prince, but she was already engaged to a lord from her own realm. The mortal prince had challenged the lord for the woman’s hand; moved by the depth of the prince’s feelings, the lord had dissolved their engagement, that the prince and his love might marry. 

It was only a story, Sansa knew. Robb had often pointed out to her the folly of the lord in dissolving such an advantageous marriage in favour of ‘true love’. Sansa, however, had remained steadfast in her opinion that it was in fact the most romantic tale, and that the lord was perhaps the most noble character of all. 

Lying in the flickering candlelight of Clegane Keep, Sansa pondered the tale with growing uncertainty. She was not in love with anyone, unlike the woman in the story. If Joffrey were playing the role of the lord, he certainly wouldn’t release her from their engagement for such a paltry reason. If she dared ask him, Sansa was sure he’d ask for her head. 

No one in the Otherworld would be foolish enough to challenge the King himself for her hand. Joffrey had the greatest sorcerers and warriors in the land at his command; whoever dared try would face almost certain death. 

_But,_ Sansa thought, as she turned to face the candle burning beside the bed, _if someone from outside the Otherworld were to challenge him, there may be a chance._

Her father had never been one for storytelling. Sansa had never dared to ask him for one, busy as he always was as Warden of the North. Once, however, he had told them about the first mortal man to have ventured into the Otherworld. He had come to save the kingdom from a terrible foe, and in return for his courage, the King of the Otherworld had granted him a great boon. No more, it was decided, could an Otherworldly being raise their magic against a mortal. They would face each other as brothers, neither holding an advantage over the other. 

It was this magic, a deep and ancient law woven into their world, that had stayed Sansa’s hand in the woods. The penalty for transgressing it was severe and binding. No one, not even a king, was exempt. It was a rule that Sansa was sure even Joffrey, reluctantly, would respect. 

_And,_ she reminded herself as she blew out the dancing flame of the candle, plunging the room into darkness, _as of now, it’s my only hope._

That was, as long as she could convince Sandor Clegane to play his part. Sansa feared that would be the greatest risk of all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the stories Sansa's POV mentions are (edited) versions of Mabinogion tales. 
> 
> So our girl has a plan. Of sorts. It's not the best plan, and a lot of stuff could just be solved if the Starks just bloody talked to each other, but much like canon I think our story is more entertaining if people keep their secrets and everything goes a bit wrong.
> 
> Also Joffrey is awful. Just a warning.
> 
> NOTE: The reason Jon has inherited title of Warden of the North is based on Welsh law (pre-1282 conquest, at least) in which an illegitimate child recognised by their father could inherent titles and property ahead of younger, legitimate, heirs. It caused a lot of trouble for Owain Gwynedd, the proud father of at least 21 children from six different women. Yikes.
> 
> Also Robb is MIA. But how? And where did he go? Well, that would be spoilers, I'm afraid, so sit tight campers. We're in for a bumpy and ~~increasingly contrived~~ ride.
> 
> Comments are love, life and happiness. Thank you for reading <3


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